An empty canvas for electrical enthusiasts! Designed to fit the SFE project enclosures this project board gives you 8x10cm (3.15x3.94") of building space for surface mount components with 1.27x2.54 (50x100mil) pads.
The marsupial naming convention is what happens when you let Engineers into a Marketing meeting. They looked so happy, we just couldn't tell them no. Bandicoot is the board with nothing but SMD prototyping pads.
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8x10cm (3.15x3.94")
Bandicoot picture taken without permission from Scary Squirrel.
This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.
Skill Level: Competent - You will encounter surface mount components and basic SMD soldering techniques are required.
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What would be really nice is a prototype board that has a section with SMD pads and the rest through hole.
Looks like they have one now. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10620?
Your bandicoot mascot is very inspiring!
Great marketing technique, engineers!
Is the bandicoot in picture 3 included? If so, could you tell me its footprint spacing?
What's the pitch of the pads? It would be great if the photos shows some examples of soldered components. If the pads are 50 x 100 mil, can you fit a SOIC (50 mil pitch) on it?
Yes, they are 50 x 100 mil pitch, and I have a SOIC-16 on one of these.
Someone tell me how you’re supposed to use this… I think I need one but I don’t know how to use these.
Oh, this is cool. It would be nice however to be able to stick in some 0.1" or 2mm headers on the sides, maybe just line two edges of this thing with little round pads w/holes in them to we can easily connect/disconnect whatever we make to something else?
I really love the idea of SMD proto-board. With that said, 4"x3"? That's HUGE for SMD. It would be awesome if it had some more strategically placed mounting holes so it could be cut into 1/2 or 1/4ths. Scoring it in quarters would be a bonus too ;)
I got a couple of these and I notice that the backside is clad, but also conformal coated. What kind of conformal is it? Can it be removed with a solvent? I succeeded in removing some mechanically (scraping) in order to straddle-mount a 2-row .100 header. It would be really nice if Sparkfun would put the SMD grid on the back as well!
Can it be cut to smaller parts? I think yes, but it's better to be sure of!
I have one of these cut into 3 pieces, with 2 being used and the 3rd reserved for future use. You can cut halfway through the backside with a rotary saw (using eye protection and dust mask, of course) and then score the topside with a sacrificial hobby knife blade ("Xacto" blades come cheap in large numbers... you should have a box of these already). I managed to preserve all the pads by scoring between them, and carefully making a clean break. :-) Hope this helps.
Yes, I do the same thing and it's quite clean. You'd probably lose 1/2 row.
probably, but it won't be clean. You will end up losing a row or two if you do.
Does this (and the other prototyping boards) work with 32TQFP spacing, or just SOIC and discrete components?